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posted by martyb on Wednesday November 01 2017, @11:58AM   Printer-friendly
from the American-game-of-FOOTball-which-is-played-using-your-HANDs dept.

Is ESPN done for?

ESPN pays $2 billion a year to the NFL for Monday Night Football and one NFL wild card playoff game. I've written for the past couple of years that as ESPN's business collapses that ESPN's decision on whether or not to bid to keep Monday Night Football would be the first big test of how rapidly that business is deteriorating.

What's a deteriorating business look like? In the month of October ESPN lost over 15,000 subscribers a day in October per the latest Nielson estimates.

15,000 a day!

Losing 15,000 subscribers per day is a lot, but is that because of the NFL anthem protests or because cord-cutting has finally reached a tipping point?


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by Grishnakh on Wednesday November 01 2017, @02:53PM (14 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday November 01 2017, @02:53PM (#590571)

    I just read an analysis on the problems of the declining viewership in all professional sports. The case could be made that it is directly related to demographics.

    Sure, but the question that's relevant to this discussion is: how is NFL viewership changing, relative to all the other sports? If it's going down at the same rate, then you can ignore the stuff the previous poster said about the NFL in particular, as all sports are suffering equally. But if NFL viewership is declining faster than other sports, then his point is valid.

    realized what a great big bunch of douchbags they were. This trendy "kneeling protest" only confirms what I already figured out decades ago.

    Douchebags aren't people who put their career in jeopardy because they want to make a political statement about their friends and relatives and neighbors being murdered by police. If you leave politics to the politicians, then you're not going to get very good results.

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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:06PM (11 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:06PM (#590577)

    "Douchebags aren't people who put their career in jeopardy because they want to make a political statement about their friends and relatives and neighbors being murdered by police. If you leave politics to the politicians, then you're not going to get very good results."

    Not necessarily. Grandstanding on an opinion - however correct - doesn't mean that the player in question isn't a gigantic asshole. And even if by some miracle you found one grandstander who isn't a gigantic asshole, that doesn't mean that they aren't surrounded by assholes in a shitty environment.

    Mmm-mm! Prime TV ratings, there.

    • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:28PM (10 children)

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:28PM (#590589)

      Not necessarily. Grandstanding on an opinion - however correct - doesn't mean that the player in question isn't a gigantic asshole.

      That's true, someone could certainly be grandstanding and still an asshole. Plenty of Hollywood folks are guilty of this: they publicly take good stands on certain political issues, but privately they're assholes or even rapists. Perhaps these opinions aren't even their own, and they're just jumping on a popular bandwagon.

      But when someone refers to "douchebags" in the NFL, I think of someone like Michael Vick, who isn't known for any political or social stands, but instead for dog-fighting.

      Also, remember that the NFL players who have been kneeling are a minority of NFL players, just as I would assume that NFL players interested in or who've participated in dog-fighting are a minority (and probably a much, much smaller minority than the kneelers).

      • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @04:03PM (4 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @04:03PM (#590614)

        The thing I find odd is how people take offence to kneeling.

        Historically, the only time I have heard of someone taking offence to kneeling was when the British envoy to the Chinese knelt in the presence of the emperor. Why was that offensive? because they only knelt instead of kowtowing (full on face to the floor kneeling).

        This is the first time I have heard of people thinking that kneeling is less respectful than standing.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @04:53PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @04:53PM (#590652)

          It is a cultural thing, just as you mention with the Chinese (japanese??) emperor. "Please stand for the pledge of allegiance" not kneel, not sit, not squat. Take off hats, hand over heart, it is a ritual to display patriotism and the details do matter.

          I find the pledge distasteful and creepy. I find people taking offense to be idiots. But I do get why it upsets them, the very basis of modern military propaganda is telling them that society has massive problems. Talk about the most uncomfortable way (for brainwashed "patriots") to get the message across.

          • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday November 01 2017, @10:01PM (1 child)

            by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 01 2017, @10:01PM (#590785)

            it is a ritual to display patriotism

            Its a ritual to display unity, note the lines like "one nation" "indivisible" and so on. The pledge is something Americans do, not random groups of fans or racial groups.

            The 60000 people in the stands have been standing up as per the ritual and the pampered rich bastards on the field are arrogant enough to not conform with the viewers in the stands, which is interesting. "I'm a millionaire I don't have to perform the pledge routine like poor people" Oddly enough that arrogance isn't very appealing to the poor people.

            The left has been pushing the narrative that the USA is nothing more than a Costco and there is no such thing as American and so forth. Merely a bunch of urban gangs fighting each other for dominance over each other. "We're not Americans we're blacks who hate whites" / "We're not Americans we're whites who hate blacks" that sort of thing. Divide and conqueror. Its quite a red pill to notice who has been running that divide and conqueror narrative for a long time ...

            Ironically from the far right I kind of agree with the far left WRT increasing racial consciousness and awareness. And on the third hand there is the rhetoric technique of agree and amplify where one way to make them look dumb is to encourage them to start burning flags at the halftime show (you know its gonna happen sooner or later regardless of what the far right wants, LOL). Once its accepted to burn flags then its time for the other side to light up the crosses, just sayin

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @01:41AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @01:41AM (#590833)

              "I'm a millionaire I don't have to perform the pledge routine like poor people" Oddly enough that arrogance isn't very appealing to the poor people.

              Utter bullshit. They are drawing attention to the disparity between the way law enforcement & the judicial system treats minority's and whites. They are speaking up for those who don't have a voice (aka the poor). You blaming this on the left is more bullshit. You just love that divide people anyway you can trolling.

              Anyone who takes offense to those kneeling to draw attention to these issue who themselves does not stand each and every time the National Anthem is played is a hypocrite.

        • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday November 01 2017, @10:09PM

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 01 2017, @10:09PM (#590788)

          Historically, the only time I have heard of someone taking offence to kneeling

          You must be a lot of fun at church services. I'm not a Catholic, but for reasons, I've been to a lot of masses and thats a good example of how dance floors are the only place where "you be you" "do your own thing" is accepted. The priest stands and 500 people in the congregation stand for the third reading (the synoptic gospel one) and some goofball decides to whip out some interpretive dance classic 80s break dancing moves instead and the other 499 people in the congregation are going to look at the break dancer like an idiot, a lunatic, an attention whore, or just simply a disruptive jerk, you know, like those jackasses who are NFL players.

          Actually an even better analogy would be the football team lines up and says "yeah this is a football game but fuck it I feel like playing baseball today" and the jackasses start playing baseball instead, possibly without even coordinating with the other team or the 60000 viewers. Because they're rich, entitled, brats, attention whores, whatever there really aren't many positive ways to spin it.

      • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @04:35PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @04:35PM (#590634)

        He didn't make you watch. He didn't take your dog. Why do you care?

        If somebody wants to damage their own personal property for fun, it doesn't involve you. You have no legitimate say in the situation.

      • (Score: 2) by Oakenshield on Wednesday November 01 2017, @06:40PM (3 children)

        by Oakenshield (4900) on Wednesday November 01 2017, @06:40PM (#590721)

        But when someone refers to "douchebags" in the NFL, I think of someone like Michael Vick, who isn't known for any political or social stands, but instead for dog-fighting.

        Absolutely. My humble opinion is that the profession of sports is inundated with douchbags, Michael Vick being a prime example. My early teen disillusioning experience so long ago was with baseball players, but although times have changed, the participants seem not to have. I think the vast majority of professional sports is saturated with self-important douchbags, like much of the entertainment industry in general. Personally I think the kneelers fit this description. If you put up a football player (seriously, a football player??) as a role model for anything except ability in athletics, you are perpetuating a delusion that they have anything of importance or value to teach humanity by virtue of their fame. They certainly value their own opinions much more highly than I do. Maybe when the NFL decides it's time to clean house of criminals, low lifes and the like (Aaron Hernandez, Ray Rice, Michael Vick, OJ, etc...) then they can start to offer the rest of the world their ideas on the proper ways to behave.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday November 01 2017, @09:45PM (2 children)

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday November 01 2017, @09:45PM (#590779)

          I disagree. Douchebags may be douchebags, but that doesn't mean they're 100% evil people and everything they believe is automatically wrong, or that they're incapable of doing something good once in a while. They may be really annoying to be around and bad interpersonal behavior, but they can have some good ideas.

          If you don't think football players, who are very public figures, have a right to make a political stand, then who should? Politicians? Regular people don't have the visibility that celebrities do; that's exactly why celebrities sometimes take public political stands, to try to use their visibility to make a difference. Being a sports star doesn't make them more qualified than you or me to judge political issues, but they do have a level of visibility that we do not have. It's not wrong to use that advantage, though it is a risk for them.

          As for cleaning house of criminals, you can say that about any industry. When is the tech industry going to clean its house of all the harassers and abusers that are rife in its ranks? Or what about the ranks of politicians? Why do we keep voting for politicians who turn out to be criminals? As long as we the people vote for criminals, I don't think we have a leg to stand on in complaining about criminals in any industry.

          • (Score: 2) by Oakenshield on Thursday November 02 2017, @12:14PM (1 child)

            by Oakenshield (4900) on Thursday November 02 2017, @12:14PM (#590973)

            If you don't think football players, who are very public figures, have a right to make a political stand, then who should?

            Did I say they didn't have a right? No. My argument is that they are devoid of any inherent authority to assert moral influence over anyone and those who would confer it based solely upon their fame are just plain stupid. I do say that protesting on their own time is perfectly reasonable, but protesting while on the job is wrong, particularly when the "protest" expression is highly offensive to a large chunk of their employers' customer base. If they want to make a statement, they can sit or kneel all they want at MLB or NBA games. Look at it this way. Suppose your largest customer was the Israeli military. Would you want your sales reps to wear Anti-Zionist political buttons when they greet their contacts?

            As for cleaning house of criminals, you can say that about any industry.

            We're not talking about cleaning house for all industry. We are talking about justifying moral authority from an industry that is known for its murderers, rapists, abusers, armed robbers, cheaters, drug abusers, and other criminals. For decades, professional sports has turned a blind eye to the moral standards of their employees because the only thing that mattered was winning. As a result, now the public isn't remotely surprised when a player beats his girlfriend on camera, or murders someone. Proof? They rehired Michael Vick when he was released from prison. The NFL players have no grounds for moral proselytism.

            • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday November 02 2017, @03:06PM

              by Grishnakh (2831) on Thursday November 02 2017, @03:06PM (#591066)

              My argument is that they are devoid of any inherent authority to assert moral influence over anyone

              OK, then who do you think does have an "inherent authority" to assert moral influence? I can't think of anyone who does. How are football players less qualified to make moral stances than any other random person? I can't think of a single group of people that is somehow morally superior to all or most others. The advantage football players have is their fame, which most other people don't have. Computer engineers certainly don't have that, and aren't ever going to get the general American public to listen to them as a group.

              Proof? They rehired Michael Vick when he was released from prison. The NFL players have no grounds for moral proselytism

              And what industry isn't just as bad? The religious industry is infamous for shielding child molesters from prosecution, not to mention conning people out of their money. The political industry is full of criminals. The computer/internet industry (that's us) is infamous for "bro culture" and sexual assault and harassment. Face it: every group of people has its share of scumbags.

  • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday November 01 2017, @05:46PM (1 child)

    by jmorris (4844) on Wednesday November 01 2017, @05:46PM (#590685)

    Douchebags aren't people who put their career in jeopardy...

    Except they aren't and knew they wouldn't be punished in any way. The inmates DO run the asylum and they know it, push comes to shove they can remove any owner. Their contracts are not tied to financial performance of the team or league. They are blowing up the NFL, but slowly enough that it only ruins the opportunity for those who will follow them.

    But with the traumatic brain thing that was already baked in, so the Progs figure to convert the accumulated goodwill of the NFL into SJW points while it is still a going concern. They don't have to care about the future because there isn't one, other Progs already assured us that football is going to sink into a sea of lawsuits soon. I'm hoping more than a few college endowments get wiped clean before it is over.

    The basic question being asked today: "..is that because of the NFL anthem protests or because cord-cutting.." is best answered with "yes" because live sportsball is the primary motivation for keeping the cord, once you quit sports in disgust you might as well pull the plug on the whole cable package, especially since it is the only way to deny ESPN your ~$10/mo fee. I'm betting sports free cable packages become a thing within a year.

    • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday November 01 2017, @06:12PM

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday November 01 2017, @06:12PM (#590702)

      I'm betting sports free cable packages become a thing within a year.

      Maybe, but my opinion is that it won't change things for the cablecos. As you said, sports are the only thing propping up cable TV now; it's the sports fans who still have subscriptions. Everyone else with a brain has already cut the cord and moved to streaming services or doesn't care enough about TV to bother. Sports-free cable packages aren't going to attract people who've now gotten used to on-demand streaming services; who wants to go back to the bad ol' days of "channels" and having to tune in at a certain time? How quaint.

      As soon as the sports leagues offer their own streaming services, cable TV is dead.